Council discusses Internet, energy

Yale hosted a meeting for student council delegates from around the Ivy League last weekend as part of the biannual Ivy Council.

Representatives from Yale, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania assembled for the meeting and passed two resolutions — one calling on universities to investigate legal alternatives to Internet file-sharing and another encouraging environmental reform.

Founded in 1993, the Ivy Council has a three-fold purpose: facilitating the exchange of information, building a network of student leaders, and amplifying the voices of Ivy League student governments.

Yale College Council President Elliott Mogul ’05 said he thought the file-sharing resolution will not have a large effect at the University, since Yale’s Information Technology Services is already pursuing other methods of file-sharing.

“The Ivy Council may give the University another impetus to pursue legal alternatives to file-sharing,” Mogul said. “But I doubt it will have a large effect.”

ITS Director of Academic Media and Technology Chuck Powell said on Nov. 11 that ITS is looking into adopting such a program.

YCC representative Christopher Wells ’06 said while he thought the Ivy Council would be effective in drawing attention to the issue of file-sharing, the problem needs to be addressed on a national level.

“Hopefully [the Ivy Council resolution] will lead to repercussions on a larger scale,” Wells said.

YCC Treasurer Andrew Cedar ’06 said he helped draft the environmental resolution. He said the proposal’s most prominent recommendations to universities include promoting energy conservation, monitoring environmental efficiency during the planning and construction of new buildings, and fostering the growth of a renewable clean energy industry in New England.

YCC representative Jose Ochoa ’05 served as Yale’s head delegate. He said the details of the environmental resolution were ambitious in scope.

“It set pretty high goals,” Ochoa said. “I would hope that Yale would attain the goals that the resolution laid out.”

Cedar said he hopes to deliver a report to Yale President Richard Levin before Winter Recess that will help tailor the resolution’s goals to the University.

The file-sharing resolution was not as easily passed as the environmental resolution, Ochoa said. Ochoa said the Dartmouth delegation blocked the original draft of the file-sharing resolution.

“The Dartmouth delegation thought that it was inappropriate to point fingers at the recording industry,” Dartmouth delegation member Stella Treas said in an e-mail. “We felt that the resolution should emphasize constructive ways to shield students from downloading liabilities, not denying the validity of downloading laws. After sitting down with the sponsors of the resolution, we were able to rephrase some clauses and develop a revised resolution that we could firmly support.”

Delegates said Yale was a good host to council members.

“The Yale delegation had a very well-planned weekend that allowed those who traveled to New Haven to get in a lot of efficient and useful work while at the same time getting the chance to explore another campus and have a great time,” Ivy Council Vice President of External Affairs Luke Meier, a Brown student, said in an e-mail.